Abstract
THERE seems to be a singular antagonism between science and officialism. The Government has undertaken more than one special manufacture, and not without a certain measure of success, but even I the best of Government factories are tainted with some perverse defiance of scientific principles. Why this should be is too large a question for present discussion, but the fact is beyond doubt. Take, for example, one of the most effective seats of national manufacture—the small-arm factory at Enfield, which is under the command of an officer who may fairly be credited with scientific intelligence. You will see there a considerable amount of what may be called imported science. Outside inventions in machinery, in rifle barrels, in locks, in breech-actions, and other branches of the work, have been appreciated, adopted, and improved, and this is so far good. The Snider is a very clever makeshift, and perhaps as good a converted rifle as could have been made out of the old Enfield. The projected Henry-Martini, again, has an excellent breech-action, though not quite the best that might have been selected. Its barrel is on a good and tried pattern, although one that has not very successfully competed with the Metford. In these respects, the design cannot be called unscientific, but it is said that one essential element of the new rifle—the sighting—if not absolutely left to be fixed by tradition and routine, will be in principle little better than the worthless sighting of the old Enfield. If a crack shot were offered the choice between a first-rate barrel with clumsy and unscientific sights and an inferior barrel fitted with perfect sights, he would certainly prefer to enter into a competition with the latter weapon. Errors from defective aim are, as a rule, much larger than those due to imperfections of rifling, and to fit a first-rate weapon with bad sights is to throw away nearly all the skill and money which has been expended upon it. This is just what the people at Enfield are doing now, and all for want of familiarity with one of the simplest maxims of geometrical science. When a mathematician, an astronomer, an engineer, or even a superior artisan, wishes to determine with accuracy the position of a point, he almost invariably does it by setting off its distance from each of a pair of rectangular co-ordinate axes. In very special cases and for very special reasons the advanced geometrician will occasionally employ oblique instead of rectangular axes; but whenever it is practicable, whether he is dealing with linear or angular measure, he uses as a matter of course rectangular axes. In a case where he has to measure independent variations in horizontal and vertical directions, he would think it simply absurd to refer the position of a point to any other than a pair of horizontal and vertical axes of co-ordinates. Thus the astronomer has his coordinates of azimuth and altitude, of latitude and longitude, the builder works with his plummet and square, and the most simple-minded carpenter, who wished a nail put in a particular spot on a wall, would order it to be driven in at so many feet from the floor, and so many feet from the side of the room. This elementary scientific method has in fact descended to so low a stratum of intelligent society that most people have assimilated it as if by instinct, and would open their eyes rather widely if they were told that when they practised it they were obeying the dictates of science. And yet, strange as it may seem, this extremely elementary, almost axiomatic, idea of rectangular co-ordinates, has not yet penetrated to the Government factory at Enfield. Consider what the sights of a rifle are for. In the simplest case, when you are aiming at an object the distance of which is known, and when there is no wind, you have nothing to do but to adjust the sights to the right elevation, and align them pon the object. But if your first shot falls low or high, or if you want to hit another object at a different distance, you must do one of two things, either slide your backsight up or down br else take a fuller or finer sight. In other words, you must correct the error in elevation, either by mechanical adjustment or eye-adjustment in the vertical direction. Practically, large and occasional changes are made by mechanical adjustment; small and frequent changes by eye-adjustment. So again, if there is wind to allow for, you must either give the sights an apparatus for lateral adjustment (which, of course, would be quite inadmissible in a military arm), or, you must make the necessary allowances by eye-adjustment in the horizontal direction. The occasions which require vertical and horizontal corrections are quite independent of each other, the one class being functions mainly of distance, and the other of lateral wind. This is, therefore, precisely the case where the position of the sight should be referred to vertical and horizontal lines.
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H., G. Science in Government Workshops . Nature 3, 410–412 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/003410b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003410b0